Introducing Maestro Cam
Greetings! We did our first Maestro Cam Prom on Saturday. It was great fun. Maestro Cam is a new red button delight, which we're trying for five TV Proms this year.
You can press red to watch a close up camera on the conductor during the Prom. There are two audio options: Music + Comment, or Music Only. Live commentary is from a conducting mentor from ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ2's 2008 Maestro TV series. The gregarious Matthew Rowe is doing our first two dates, with Peter Stark and Jason Lai joining later in August. They'll be commentating on conductors Vasily Petrenko, Ilan Volkov, Daniel Barenboim and David Robertson. There's also the option to watch the main Prom TV coverage under the red button, if you fancy just the multi-camera action.
On Friday we practised at the Royal Albert Hall during the main Prom's camera rehearsal. It was one of those times when I thought "I'm getting paid to do this - this is ridiculous!" because it was so enjoyable. Graeme Kay from Proms interactive and I offered some editorial suggestions to Matthew Rowe - though we both thought Matthew had pitched it just right. We want Maestro Cam to appeal both to people who know nothing about music, and to those who do.
We had intended to show full screen conductor at all times. This means you can't see the orchestra at all. During rehearsal we decided to alternate this with picture-in-picture, for different movements/pieces of music: little picture of conductor Sir Charles Mackerras in big multi-camera picture. Especially when Sir Charles was cueing unusual instruments, and the voices of soloists should be seen as well as heard.
Matthew & Graeme both score-read throughout the Prom. We went through the camera script in advance to match Matthew's comments with shots of particular instruments, for our 'picture-in-picture' pieces.
How it works
The music-only audio and video feeds are sent via microwave link from Royal Albert Hall, to the glamorously entitled 'BIP' - our red button gallery in ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Television Centre. Matthew Rowe records his commentary live to air. Music + comment audio is mixed together in the BIP, and everything is sent from BIP to red button Playout for broadcast. I operated the desk, with set up from a very helpful vision mixer and our engineers, who also sorted a synch problem we had during the first half.
You can also watch each Maestro Cam online, from the day after broadcast until the end of the Proms season (on Saturday 12 September).
We learnt a lot from our first broadcast, which went quite smoothly, and we intend to make it even better for the next: Saturday 8 August, 7pm, press red from ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ2 TV,
It's the first time we've done live audio commentary and/or close-up camera on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Red Button for classical music and your comments would be welcomed!
Let us know what you think of it.
Rhonagh O'Donnell is Interactive Platforms Producer for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Audio and Music Interactive.
- Find out when you can press red for Maestro Cam on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Proms website
- You can also watch Maestro Cam online.
- Over on the Radio 3 Blog, Graeme Kay blogs about the rehearsal and first performance.
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